Garage doors currently in use, in general, are made up of a plurality of panels arranged one above another and hingedly connected at meeting top and bottom rails to pivot relative to one another as the door is raised and lowered. The construction of these panels includes a relatively large number of wooden pieces including top and bottom wooden rails and upright wooden stiles which are joined in a rectangular framework at tongue and groove joints, together with a plurality of hardboard sheets that fit into inside grooves formed in the wooden rails and intermediate wooden stiles to close the central area of the rectangular framework.
Among the problems encountered with such garage door structures is the unavailability of suitable wood, the cost of wood, the tendency of wood to warp, the maintenance requirements for painted wood, and a strength deficiency in wooden rails. This prior art garage door construction also involves considerable cutting, a number of edge shaping steps, and relatively complex machinery to assemble and fasten the pieces into a completed panel.